Would be nice if each picture tols us what we're looking at and gave us a comparison between what's good and why this is bad.

+1

Road noise wouldn't come through the door panels for the most part, and wind noise would be down to the aerodynamics of the mirrors and door pillars, etc. - more of a design issue I'd say. I'm guessing the bottom pic shows soundproofing felt on a Merc door? (NB, felt only deals with certain frequencies). Can't really see what soundproofing materials are present inside the BMW door

Road noise wouldn't come through the door panels for the most part, and wind noise would be down to the aerodynamics of the mirrors and door pillars, etc. - more of a design issue I'd say. I'm guessing the bottom pic shows soundproofing felt on a Merc door? (NB, felt only deals with certain frequencies). Can't really see what soundproofing materials are present inside the BMW door

Tech said there is couple of holder for sounddamping material like F10 but nothing in there. He said BMW putting it later sometimes.

According to the Technical Manager @ my dealer, there have been a few complaints from owners of early production cars of excessive wind noises. The causes have been either misaligned windshield (it only takes a 1mm shift to produce excessive noise), driver's side mirror or B pillar trim.

My 335i (mid-October build) is very quiet on the highway.

As for your comment about build quality, I have been told that warranty claims for F30 are substantially less than they were for E90. My own observations, comparing previous E90s that I owned to my F30-335i, suggest that the build quality has been improved. For example, the paint finish is flawless on my F30, the interior trim is of a higher quality and the doors shut with a more solid feeling thunk than the E90 doors.

When comparing the body shells of E90 and F30, the F30 feels more robust on the road and it rides better. The body structure of the F30 has been substantially strengthened over that of the E90 - that's why the F30 feels more robust !!!

Over the past 25+ years, between my wife and I, we have owned several MBs and more than a dozen BMWs. The MBs have always been more problematic with many repeat visits required to fix annoying issues (eg. faulty auto transmission, rattles and squeaks). I would never go back to MB because of the lousy and very expensive service offered by their factory owned dealerships.

MB are built well, maybe a bit more refined in the 3 series/C segment. But i think the C mercs body looks old and the trademark front is ugly compared to BMW. That said they are 2 are completely different machines with different purposes. Mercs are cruisers, BMW are bruisers lol

The first 2 were purely assembly errors, aka the assembly workers were neither skilled nor careful enough. These are parts which I can easily spot, now I am just worried about those I can't see under the chassis.

BTW I also have squeaking rear doors, big time, even on normal driving on very flat roads. My local dealer here in Singapore is making me wait for 3 weeks just to get an appointment for fix. This car is made in SA FYI.

I have always said, BMW does not build cars, rather BMW builds machines that build cars.

There is a distinction.

You don't listen to random tracks of a great production. Rather, you hear the composite results of a beautiful mixdown and mastering of all of the tracks.

Soloing the snare drum track of Rush's Tom Sawyer tells you nothing of its greatness.

Roll the master tape and it blows your mind.

Same here. BMW is not the inside of a door panel; rather, your BMW is the entire car standing for what it is---an intense marvel of engineering built by a machine; yet, augmented to a very limited extent by people.

It is the people part that leads to failures, but if every BMW worked flawlessly to its published specification then we would be left with a dull, monochromatic world with nothing special about it.